


This Is How We Pay For College

by ohjustdisarmalready



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pizza Place, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Just Add Kittens, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Shopping Malls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 21:45:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18725596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohjustdisarmalready/pseuds/ohjustdisarmalready
Summary: He absolutely can’t do this. He’ll die. His organs will shut down purely to put him out of his misery. His body will recognize that it is in his best interests to collapse on the floor of the shitty greasy tomato-y hell he lives in, between the oven and the warming rack, and he will straight-up die here in the food court. His cause of death will be listed as “depressed bastard, literally couldn’t live sixty more seconds,” and Kai will be so disappointed in him.





	This Is How We Pay For College

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my original fiction...I hope u like it, I have worked very hard on it
> 
> It is admittedly slightly inspired by my d&d character, and mostly by my own experiences working at a fast food place in the mall. Retail is interesting.

_ One more minute. One more minute. One more minute _ , he chants to himself silently.

It’s 11:57 and 32 seconds. He’s been on shift at Pizza Alabama (yes, he knows he’s in Connecticut; no, it’s not a chain; yes, that’s kind of a funny name for a kiosk in the North Haven Mall; yes, he’s heard that before) for an hour and 57 minutes and…36 seconds, now. He’s been chipping at the worn, fading countertop for the better part of an hour. He should probably wipe that down again. Ugh.

It’s not the work that’s the trouble, though. Work is great. Work has kept him from killing himself for the past 83 days and approximately 17 hours. But he can’t do it anymore, is the problem. He doesn’t want to.

But he can’t kill himself on the clock.

Okay. He can get through one more minute, can’t he? Baby steps, right? He just needs to survive until the despair goes away and the terrible, dull blankness creeps back in. Five seconds down already.

Keeping his mind filled up with simple math makes the pressing desire to stick his hand in the stove until he has grill marks more bearable. Breaking up time into little, manageable chunks that he can live through helps, too, because any idiot can make it through 60 seconds. He’s already made it through 15 seconds of that. He can pass another 15 or so by calculating his shift length again. The answer changes just slightly with every second that passes. 17 seconds down. This is doable.

He absolutely can’t do this. He’ll die. His organs will shut down purely to put him out of his misery. His body will recognize that it is in his best interests to collapse on the floor of the shitty greasy tomato-y hell he lives in, between the oven and the warming rack, and he will straight-up die here in the food court. In his old coworker Damien’s uniform, because he still hasn’t bothered to replace his own after The Laundry Incident. His cause of death will be listed as “depressed bastard, literally couldn’t live sixty more seconds,” and Kai will be so disappointed in him. He’s been living second to second for exactly 12 weeks as of approximately 6:45 PM tonight, and this is where it ends. Right here and now, at 11:58 in the morning (and 3 seconds), after all that effort.

No, that’s no good. He can’t die at work. He’s made it through every awful, pointless day so far; he can at least wait until he’s home. The massive, gaping emptiness there won’t mind waiting for him—and if it does, well; it’s actively trying to kill him, so he doesn’t really feel bad about that.

A rude hand waves in front of his face.

“Hello?  _ Hello _ ? Are you going to take my order or not?” says the owner of the hand, presumably. He has a customer.

Salvation.

He puts on a bland smile.

“Hello! Thank you for your patience and welcome to Pizza Alabama, where you find a piece-a home. What can I do for you?” he says.

Customers pass the time. People who don’t care who the hell he is, who want their pizza ten minutes ago and don’t care for his mere human limits, they give him something to do. Thank God.

Once the customer is gone, he looks at his watch.

11:00 and 47 seconds.

Nice. That puts him over two hours on shift. Five and a half to go.

Ugh, five and a half to go.

He’s going to crawl into the dough fridge and die. Rest in fucking pepperoni, he’s had a good run and he’s done now.

That’s not really funny. Death isn’t a joke.

It’s kind of funny.

He breathes out.

He breathes in.

He breathes out again.

He doesn’t breathe in.

He slumps over the counter, tapping his fingers again against the shitty, worn finish. Tap. Tap. Tap. Time passing. He’s still not breathing.

_ Someone please come order a fucking pizza _ . His lungs hurt. His limbs might as well be long, tapping sandbags. His head is beginning to pound.

He breathes in. The void in his chest eases. For a moment.

He wants to talk to Kai. He takes another deep breath instead.

The counter smells terrible. Too much cash and cardboard passing over it. People never realize it, but cash is fucking gross.

The stove screams.

_ Ugh _ . Sausage is ready to come out.

Back to the grind.

19,592 seconds until he’s off his shift.

* * *

20,113 seconds later:

“Hello, welcome to Pizza Alabama, thank you for your patience, one moment please,” he whirls around to grab the drinks—Diet Coke and a Sprite, light ice, capped and where the hell did the customer go, there they are, “Here’s your drinks and have a nice day!”

Oven open, mitts on, pizza out, cooling rack, kick the oven closed, mitts off, register, “Hello, how can I help you?”

There are at least four separate customers in line, one looks to be a family; early dinner or just stopping for drinks? Where the hell is Lorelai? Current customer’s ordering, two Sprites, one large and one medium, no pizza, whatever that lady wants—no, she doesn’t want anything, just the Sprites, he’s already pouring them—

“No, actually, make that two larges, I think, and can we get a slice of pizza with that? Cheese, please.”

Great. Dump the medium, pour another large, grab the pizza with his spare hand, tell the customer, “swipe your card right—no, other way around,  _ other _ other way, there you go you’ve got it, would you like your receipt?”

“I don’t need it, thanks.”

Then get the hell out of the way, next customer, please.

“Pizza Alabama, how can I help you?” he asks, glancing at the new customer before getting ready to key in their order. Heavyset white guy, Hawaiian shirt and an obnoxious cap, is there a—yep, GameStop ID, he’s gonna want pepperoni—

“Two slices of pepperoni and a large Cherry Coke,” GameStop Manager says; great, he’s on it. “Oh, and a mall discount.”

Manager Dude flashes the GameStop ID, great, put in the discount—a nicely manicured hand passes a drink and box to the counter from behind him as he finishes tapping in the order. He hasn’t got time or breath to thank Lorelai for finally showing up. He glances up at her bright white smile and big green eyes—nice eyeshadow, she must be coming in from a date.

“Pizza Alabama, what can I get for you?” he asks the next customer.

“Would you stay until the rush is over?” Lorelai asks under the customer’s order.

“You got it,” he says to both of them. “Lai, two cheeses? One’s on the cooling rack. Ma’am, would you like anything to drink with that? Dipping sauce?”

The line was a hellacious rush for him alone, but with Lorelai it’s the work of minutes. Soon, they’ve got a full seating area, an empty warming case, and no line. He dumps the tip jar out into a spare cup.

“Well, there’s an early dinner rush!” Lorelai flits behind him to check the register. “Sorry I was late. Date night, you know, and we just lost track of the time.”

“It was a lunch date,” he grumbles, because date night cannot end at four in the afternoon. “This was with…the accountant? The actuary?”

“Coffee date, not lunch. We went to REAL up on 4 th and Fremont, it was nice. Terrence is a gentleman,” Lorelai says. Her voice flutes like it does when she really likes her latest beau; that’s cool.

“Yeah,” he says. “You gonna bring him by the mall some time?”

“Mm, maybe if next date goes well,” she says. So maybe he’s not all that.

Now that the rush is gone, his feet ache and his shoulders hurt. He washes his gross cash hands for the hundredth time and cuts off a lump of dough without being asked.

“By the way, you ever gonna hire anyone else to work at this place? That kid from the Gap was hovering around earlier,” he says.

The register chimes behind him as Lorelai starts counting cash to make change. He takes the time to toss the dough a bit higher, get a fun spin going. Whee.

“If he’s not happy at the Gap, we don’t want him here,” Lorelai says.

“Yeah, that’s what I told him. Said I’d tell you he asked, though.” He flips the dough onto the pan with a flourish. “We gotta get someone in here, though. Who’s closing on Monday?”

He’s more worried about what she’ll do without him. If he can’t come in one day, she hasn’t got anyone else to call.

“You are,” Lorelai says. “I’m going to happy hour with Michael. He’s the accountant.”

Michael…he doesn’t think he knows this one. Must be new. How many accountants does Lorelai know? Is there an accountantsonly.com?

“You could always ask your brother to come in some time. He was a good worker,” Lorelai says.

The register clicks shut and Lorelai’s footsteps brush over to the oven. “Behind you.”

The blast of heat gives his goosebumps. His muscles feel too tight.

“…Kai’s not my brother,” he says, like that’s the relevant thing to clarify. His heart is puffed up like a startled hedgehog and it’s starting to stab into his lungs.

“Roommate, then. Are you still living together in that awful apartment? Mordecai is nice, but you could really afford to live somewhere nicer…I’ve still got that loft open, you know I’d be happy to have you,” Lorelai suggests. “Or if you want to move with him, I think Evan had a friend who was renting something out south of here.”

Great. His boss is offering him a loft apartment in her house. That’s a classy way to live. Real indicator that his life is going good places.

He finishes slathering sauce on the pizza and goes for the cheese.

“Kai left.”

It’s true. It’s true, so he shouldn’t mind saying it.

Lorelai coos concernedly like every single person had when they’d heard the news. They’d all tutted around Sylvia, Kai’s girlfriend of two fucking weeks or something (they were coming up on their one year and Sylvia had started dropping hints about moving in).

He shrugs roughly and sprinkles cheese over the pizza, like any other day.

“Yeah. Three months ago. He’s off to college, actually. Full ride to Yale, he could hardly believe it. Wouldn’t even have had to move, but you know, he wanted the dorm experience. He’s at some summer term thing now,” he lies, turning to Lorelai and smiling wide. Something itches at the corner of his eyes; he ignores it.

He’s not lying about the full ride, at least. The letter came two days after Kai was gone. He remembers helping with the admissions essays, studying for tests, bullying Kai’s high school into coughing up his old transcripts. Hell, he’s probably learned as much about that shit as Kai just helping with the admissions process, much less bullshitting those “why is Yale  _ right for you _ ?” essays.

Maybe it hadn’t been right for Kai, though. It had seemed right, which is why he’d bullied Kai into applying in the first place—Kai loved that intellectual shit. He’d thought Kai would be happy there.

If you love them, let them go, and all.

Fuck.

“That’s fantastic!” Lorelai says. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Have him come over on a weekend, we can have a little party after close! How’s Saturday? Does Saturday work for him?”

Lorelai is smiling in that subtle glam way people do when you pretend to be happy and successful and they pretend to be happy and successful and you all try to be happy for each other. He wants to go home already. He sticks the pizza in the oven instead and resists the urge to crawl into it himself.

“You’re going to happy hour with, uh, Mick on Saturday,” he reminds her. She laughs brightly. It must take a lot of energy to be Lorelai.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that! I can cancel. Let me call right now, actually, one sec.” And she’s whipping out her phone before he can blink. Oh, no. He should say something. He should stop this.

“Um, he’s busy Saturdays, actually,” he says in the end, because he’s a coward. A lucky one, though—Lorelai stops as soon as he’s opened his mouth, and she’s making a disappointed noise before he’s halfway through his sentence.

“That’s too bad. Maybe before we open on Sunday, then? You’ll have to take home a cinnamon twist tonight—will you see him tonight? Let me get that going right now. Do you need to catch a bus? You should get something to eat, too.” She’s already nudging him off the rolling station, getting the cinnamon sugar out. “I am so happy for you both! When are you going to go to college? You could always do business management.”

Right. Because a pizza guy is really what they’re looking for. He starts restocking the cups.

“I don’t have to catch the bus for another half hour,” he says, not addressing the rest. He has a car, but he doesn’t drive anymore. “I was gonna bring something out to the girls, anyway. Emily brought me breakfast earlier.”

The girls working at Cinnabon aren’t exactly lacking for food, but eating the same thing every day is terrible, so they let him trade pizza for pastries. And he gets some human interaction, after being Retail Employee #3 all day.

Luckily, they’re busy enough that the time flies after that, and soon his food’s out of the oven. He’s clocked out and putting his cap away before Lorelai’s done boxing it up.

“Get out of here, go have fun with your friends,” Lorelai says, not unkindly. She pats the back of his hand. Taptaptap.

It’s entirely too draining, but he summons up a last half-smile.

“I will,” he lies. “I’ll see you later, Lorelai.”

* * *

He fuzzes out as soon as he leaves work. There’s some time lost there, but he’s not really sure how much. He fuzzes back in standing at the back counter of Cinnabon, with Mary ducking down to meet his eyes, saying, “Damien? Can I ask you for a really huge favor?”

_ Damien isn’t even my name _ , he thinks absently. He was just wearing Damien’s uniform when he met Mary, because he was once a fool who did not know how to do laundry. It’s too awkward to correct her now.

“What do you need?” He barely remembers to ask in time. “I kind of had plans tonight.”

He really doesn’t, unless tonight is the night he finally ends it all. But even if he just goes home, he doesn’t really want to interrupt his time off. He wants to sleep.

“You’re awfully busy lately,” Mary says. “Didn’t you cancel on Emily last week? What are you up to tonight?”

“Helping you with something, allegedly. What is it?” he asks impatiently. He’s already been at work an extra hour and a half.

Mary gets this crease between her brows sometimes, when she worries. He hates it. It harshens her round face and purple pixie cut into something dark and troubled.

She looks…really tired, actually, now that he’s looking right at her. Tired and worried. Maybe she really needs help with something.

He leans fractionally closer. Mary works her jaw a bit, but eventually says, “My cat had kittens.”

Well, there’s a non sequitur.

“I…know?” he asks more than says. “I told you she was pregnant. I drove her to the vet.”

He did. He drove her to the vet. And then he hadn’t been home when Kai needed him, and he hasn’t driven anywhere since, and his life is a trainwreck.

Mary winces, somewhere far away.

“Yeah. Sorry,” she says, probably.

He’s not there to hear it. He’s moving through that night again, coming home to Kai gone, Kai’s wallet and phone on the counter, one new message that he hadn’t checked. He hadn’t checked it. He’d shouted that he was home instead, forced the lock shut like always, bitched about needing to get it fixed, wasted two hours thinking Kai must have forgotten his phone and wallet at home and he’d be home any minute now and he couldn’t have walked out for long. Not like Kai was gonna miss out on study night, right?

But the wallet wasn’t on the counter when he’d left for the vet, but it was right there when he’d come back, which means Kai was home to put it there while he was gone, was alive and present and if he’d been home he could have seen him alive, talked to him alive,  _ done _ something, maybe Kai wasn’t planning on doing anything that night and Kai really just left him because he wasn’t there when Kai had needed him, when he should have been home, because he was busy with other things that didn’t—

A soft brush on his shoulder makes him jolt.

There’s another hand on his wrist—soft, a little sweaty. No, that’s lotion. Because Mary likes that Bath & Body Works lotion. She’s always offering it to him.

She’s leaned halfway over the counter. She takes up half his vision.

He’s been talking with her this whole time. There’s no reason to be surprised.

“—mien? Damien? Damien,” she says. It sounds like she’s been talking for a while. “I’m gonna call—”

She doesn’t make a move to grab her phone. Her hands, rested on his shoulder and his wrist, seem to drill in tightly, like she can physically keep him from wandering off. Maybe she can. He doesn’t feel especially solid right now.

He shakes himself and she lets go, slowly, half a beat late; and her hands just hover there for a moment. Just a bit too far to touch.

“Right, yeah. Sorry, spaced out for a bit. Actually, though. What did you need? What was it?” He stammers a bit on the pickup, but recovers quickly enough to stand up straight and relax his muscles. He pastes on a bland smile and her hand trails down his arm, retreating.

“Are you…?” Mary starts, but stops herself. Maybe it’s something in his face, or maybe she can just sense that he can’t take hearing the end of that sentence.

Whatever it is, he’s grateful for it. He comes to work to get away from all this. He doesn’t need it dragged into this last corner of his life where he’s still some aching facsimile of a living person.

Mary’s fingers drum the counter inches from where his hand lies dead and useless. He balls it into a fist, so he can at least be doing something with it.

“I have all these kittens,” Mary says. Why does she keep talking about her cat?

“I only have one, actually, the rest got adopted out, but I still have one left and she needs someone to take care of her. She’s this little orange and white cat, you’d love her, she’s really sweet. She’s gonna be a lap cat, I can already tell. And she likes music. And she’s really talkative, so it would never be quiet with her around, and I have kitten food and there’s a spare litterbox taking up space in my closet that I need to get rid of anyway, and my landlord doesn’t want me to have another cat so I really need to find her a place to stay before inspections, so I thought maybe you could take her?” She rushes out. “And cats are good for people. They can help with loneliness and it’s nice to have something to come home to and take care of. And inspection is Tuesday, so I really need to find her a place, just for a little while? Just try? You’ll really be doing me a favor.”

He blinks, reeling. That was a lot of words in not a lot of time.

“…I can’t take care of a cat,” he says, once that filters in. He wants to die all the time. He can’t have a cat. What if he kills himself before he remembers to feed it?

Mary plows through.

“I can bring her over tomorrow. Tonight? I have a long shift but I can come after. You don’t have to commit right now off the bat immediately, but please, please take care of her for a little while? Please,” she grabs his wrist again, and just sort of holds his hand between hers. It’s also hers now.

“But,” he stutters.

He did not come to work with an argument prepared for why he can’t own a cat.

“But I.” He stops again. He can barely keep himself alive. Kai decided to die rather than keep living with him. He can’t keep a cat alive. How long do cats live? He doesn’t even know. More than a handful of seconds, which is more than he can promise some days.

Mary has no concern for these facts. She gestures behind her, to the storefront.

“I have to get back to work, but I’ll come by tonight, okay? I’m off at eight, so I can get there around nine—”

“Wait,” he says. “I—come by tomorrow.”

What.

_ What are you doing, stop that _ , he says to himself.

Mary’s face lights up. He hasn’t hung out with her outside of work in three months; she’s already running with it.

“Great! Tomorrow! What time? I can do whenever, I have a half shift but Emily owes me one, I can get it off,” she says. She slams open a drawer and rips off some spare receipt tape.

“Uh. Six. In the evening,” he somehow says without actually moving his body. Maybe he’s been possessed. “Actually, five. Is your car still broken down?”

She really shouldn’t be walking alone in his neighborhood. And he shouldn’t be inviting her over at all, in case he kills himself tonight and stands her up like some kind of insensitive douchebag.

She scribbles down  _ 5PM—sharp! Be there!  _ 😊 on the receipt tape and pries his hand open to accept it.

Now he has to let her know if he kills himself before five tomorrow. Does he have to write a note? That’s kind of a dick move, either way--it’s rude to die when you have plans. And if he doesn’t die tonight, he won’t be able to until she can take her cat back. A baby cat doesn’t deserve to starve just because he’s a piece of shit who can’t survive without his One True Love or whatever.

“I’ll be at your house at five,” Mary is saying. “You’ll be waiting, right? I’ll bring my guitar, maybe we can hang out a bit. It’s been a while.”

She grins a little, hesitantly. She’s his only friend who hasn’t given up on him entirely after three months of radio silence from his end. Maybe she just feels guilty.

God, he’s a terrible person. He’s so tired. He’s just so fucking tired.

“Yeah,” he says. “It really has. We should, do stuff more. If you’re free. Later.”

84 days since he’s bothered with anything but coming to work to pretend none of this has happened to him. He’s made it through 12 weeks tonight. That’s a good number, right? He’s worked hard enough—he’s worked so damned hard, for nothing, really. He’s earned an end. Right?

“I’d love to,” says Mary. “Anything. We don’t have to leave your apartment if you don’t want to. Or if you need to crash on my couch a bit, the offer’s still open, okay? Any time. Seriously, wake me up in the middle of the night, call, text, anything. And I’ll see you tomorrow! I’ll bring your kitten!”

She lunges over the counter to squeeze him tight for a moment, and he’s just for a second in his own skin, pinned into the right time and place, not just watching the future from his place at approximately 6:45 PM on April fourteenth. He’s here, with Mary, talking over the back counter of the Cinnabon in North Haven Mall. He’s just right here.

She’s gone before he can hug her back, sweeping the pizza boxes off the counter and into the minifridge, greeting the guy who must have been hanging back from the counter for a while now.

He’s still a bit dizzy from being launched so suddenly into the present.

“…okay,” he mutters. “See you…”

* * *

 

He doesn’t take the bus straight home. He feels strangely alert, weirdly present in his own skin, part of the world instead of watching it. He feels like he can do anything—not anything like his options are limitless, but anything like anything at all, like he is finally able to do something real that will affect the world, just one thing. Like he isn’t haunting the same path anymore that he followed the last day he was really alive.

He gets off at the overpass, over the ocean. He’s only a few blocks from home. Kai walked here when he jumped.

He can see the waves with crystal clarity. The ocean wind tucks his hair back to his ears, fresh and salty. Only the cars driving by push him back towards the edge—he stumbles as a cherry red convertible speeds past.

He catches himself on the guard rail. He looks down.

He’s been coming here every day for 84 days, looking down at the ocean Kai disappeared into. The ocean Kai jumped into. Instead of continuing to live with him.

He’d always said he would follow Kai anywhere.

He doesn’t have to live second to second. He doesn’t owe anyone shit, except maybe for Lorelai, who will just have to forgive him. Or not. Not like he’ll be around to care.

This whole thing is stupid. He’s been trying so damned  _ hard _ to live, and for what? It’s not like Kai’s gonna come home if he waits long enough! He wasn’t enough for the most important person in his life, and now he just has to live with it, or not. It’s not like Kai will walk through their front door and pick up his wallet off the counter and say, what, “I’m glad you’re alive?” “I saw how hard you’ve been working and that’s good enough?” “I love you?”

“I’m sorry I was never in love with you?”

His eyes spill over and his hands grip so tightly on the rail that they hurt. His throat hurts. His heart  _ hurts _ .

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he whispers—to Kai; to himself; to no one, because that’s who’s listening to him. “I can’t live like this anymore.”

He can’t take any more seconds.

He climbs up the guard rail and sits on top of it. Just sits. Doesn’t move; he’s not doing anything wrong yet. He just sits.

The midafternoon sun is so hot and bright, and the wind is gentle. It’s just cool enough to make the heat bearable. He’d always used to love living near the ocean. Too cold to swim in most of the time, but it’s so beautiful. Looking at it makes the world seem endless.

The cars passing by must see him, but no one’s stopping him. If he wants to follow Kai, he’s free to go.

And what has he got to miss, anyway? A shitty job at a fast food place in the mall? An empty apartment that’s been more Kai’s than his since April?

Kai was selfish when he killed himself, because he left behind someone who loved him more than anyone else in the world. Who would have died a hundred times if it would give Kai something to live for. Who could take a long walk off a short pier right now and leave nothing unfinished but a Monday evening shift.

He really has nothing to live for, does he?

So why hasn’t he jumped?

All of a sudden, all he can think about it talking to Lorelai earlier. Telling her Kai is off to college.

He and Kai had worked so damned hard on that application to Yale. He’d spent slow shifts learning vector fucking calculus to teach Kai how to show up all the snotty Ivy League brats he’d be in class with; Kai had stayed up hours and hours quizzing himself about history, literature, law and politics. They’d given themselves a whole-ass college education at their kitchen table to get that application done, and now it’s all for nothing. Months of hard work for both of them, and now Kai is dead and he himself is sitting at this same damned overpass, waiting to get his courage up to put the final nail in the coffin. If he jumps now, no one will remember any of those late nights. No one will care.

He wants to stop one of those cars passing by. He wants to stop them and tell them. He wants to force them to know— _ I did this, I did this, we did this. I worked so hard with him once. I made him smile once. I was worth something once. _

Kai could have been brilliant. Kai  _ was _ brilliant. Kai was a genius, and witty, and no one in the world knows it—not even Kai’s girlfriend Sylvia—like he does.

And once he jumps, no one ever will.

It’s not fair of him. Everyone should know Kai. The whole world should  _ know _ about the best person in it. Every single person should feel how empty all of human existence is without Kai as a part of it. What’s there to bother with, if no one is ever going to hear that laugh again? Kai was so  _ alive _ —why should anyone else be, if he’s not anymore?

And when he jumps, what will that make him? A couple of old math trophies and six consecutive years of Employee of the Month at Pizza Alabama? He taught himself multivariable fucking calc for this?

There should have been a way for him to just—to take away, somehow, whatever was so awful in Kai’s life that he had to kill himself to get away from it. He wishes he could have killed himself first, so Kai would have had to live with the aftermath—so Kai would have had to live.

Maybe he did take all of Kai’s pain. Maybe Kai left it to him after he’d died. Maybe he relieved Kai of everything that killed him, but it was all just too little; too late.

And the only reason he’s hesitating now is just—it’s hard to accept, isn’t it? He’s been in love with Kai for years, weathered what they’d each thought would be the worst parts of their lives together. He’d put in—they’d both put in so much damned  _ work _ to do the fucking college application, to get their apartment together, to keep themselves moving upward every time it seemed like there was nothing more to lose. That acceptance letter—a  _ free ride _ to an  _ Ivy League _ —it was a pipe dream. It should have been the start of the rest of their lives. The rest of Kai’s life.

He could have been happy with it. He could have been the best man at Kai and Sylvia’s wedding, and attended graduation, and counted himself happy just to be a part of Kai’s life. And now everything they worker for together is dead, because apparently Kai didn’t think it was worth it.

Maybe he’s always gonna be living through the worst possible second in his life. Maybe that’s what life without Kai is like. But letting everything they’d finally achieved go to waste…it’s a bitter pill to swallow.

Maybe that’s how he should be doing this. He’s always been afraid of heights.

Maybe he shouldn’t be here at all. He’s just so tired of being  _ him _ .

It’s not fair. That’s probably the hardest part. It’s not right that he keeps his dead-end life when Kai had so much to lose. The world is a worse place without Kai, and nothing’s ever been able to fill the hole. The only one who knew Kai well enough to try is him, and he’d be just as well to go to Yale himself; as long as he’s dreaming.

Well. There’s a thought.

He lets himself entertain it. Delusions are part of dying, right? Probably.

It wouldn’t be that hard, really. Lorelai called him and Kai brothers, they’re…sort of similar. If he dyed his hair, got glasses, he’d look close enough. Nobody looks exactly like their driver’s license photo, anyway.

He has Kai’s birth certificate at home, his wallet, his passport; everything. Hell, he still has the damned acceptance letter—he hasn’t sent in anything to tell them Kai’s not going to attend on account of being dead. Apparently that duty falls to the next of kin, and Kai’s next of kin has been too busy considering suicide in a pizza parlor to bother.  _ Technically _ , Yale University doesn’t know Kai is dead.

Technically, they’re still expecting a student. A guy with a passing resemblance to Kai who happened to know everything Kai knows, and have everything Kai should have, would be indistinguishable from the actual Mordecai Leminke.

Oh, Kai would laugh, but thinking about it…

Sure, Yale is hard, but would it really be harder than living as Kai’s ghost?

He swings one leg back over the rail.

This is insanity. He’s finally cracked. Grief has driven him crazy. He should just off himself now, nice and simple, before he gets into any of this foolishness.

Well. What are they gonna do, kill him?

He shoots a text off to Lorelai first, just to check— _ If I take you up on that loft apartment, can I bring my cat? _

He and Kai had damned well  _ earned _ that free ride. Yale wouldn’t want some pizza guy, and Kai apparently didn’t want Yale, but they’d worked too fucking hard for him to shrug and call it a day. Maybe Kai Leminke wasn’t happy with that life—fine.

Maybe “Mort” Leminke will be.

**Author's Note:**

> So, fraud. Fraud is how we pay for college.
> 
> Please let me know if you liked it! Tumblr [here](hahanoiwont.tumblr.com) if you want to drop by and talk to me :)


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